Serious Questions About the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System

Bracey contends that the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) is circular: TVAAS defines effective teachers as those who produce increases in test scores. Then it says, look here, when kids are in the classes of ‘effective teachers,’ their test scores go up. Now come studies, one by Haggai Kupermintz of the University of Haifa and one by the RAND institute, that include the same observations and raise many important questions about the use of TVAAS. The TVAAS fad seems to be one of those phenomena that receive widespread attention and adoption in the absence of much data. Until a rigorous research program using TVAAS data is established and returns results, there should be a moratorium on the use of the TVAAS system for evaluations with any real-world consequences.(2pp.)